INDIANAPOLIS -- Tickets to preliminary rounds of the 2016 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship go on sale at 10 a.m. local time Saturday, Oct. 17, to each host city. Fans wishing to buy tickets to the First Four®, first- and second-round games or regional competition should go to www.NCAA.com/MBBTickets.

The 2016 championship begins on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, March 15-16, with the First Four -- four first-round games taking place in Dayton, Ohio. First- and second-round action takes place Thursday and Saturday, March 17 and 19, in Denver; Des Moines, Iowa; Providence, Rhode Island; and Raleigh, North Carolina. Also, hosting first- and second-round games Friday and Sunday, March 18 and 20, will be Brooklyn, New York; Oklahoma City, St. Louis and Spokane, Washington.

Louisville, Kentucky, will serve as the South Regional site and Anaheim, California, will host the West Regional on Thursday and Saturday, March 24 and 26. Philadelphia will be the site for the East Regional and Chicago will host the Midwest Regional on Friday and Sunday, March 25 and 27.

“This is a great opportunity for college basketball fans to see March Madness® in some of our traditional cities with a long history of hosting the tournament, as well as a couple of new cities that have never hosted before,” said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s vice president of men’s basketball. “From major markets to smaller cities, there’s a great chance that America’s best sporting event is going to be played reasonably close to any fan in the country, so it’s a terrific opportunity to come watch history unfold.”

The 78th NCAA Men’s Final Four® will be co-hosted on April 2 and 4 by the University of Houston, Rice University and Texas Southern University. General tickets to the games at NRG Stadium in Houston are sold out, but fans still have the opportunity to purchase ticket and hospitality packages from PrimeSport, the official ticket and hospitality provider of the NCAA, by visiting www.NCAA.com/VIP. The NCAA Experience® ticket and hospitality packages for all preliminary rounds of the championship can also be purchased at that website via PrimeSport.